Enterprise Java, Oracle’s motivation for suing Google?

By now you’ve read that Oracle has sued Google for patent and copyright infringement related to the Android platform. Google has responded that the claims are baseless and counter to the open source community movement. The press, pundits, Oracle and Google seem to have ignored the Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) impact of Oracle’s suit. Here’s why IT decision makers shouldn’t ignore the Java EE impact.

At issue is Dalvik, the unique, Java-based runtime at the heart of Google’s Android smartphone OS. Oracle, which gained stewardship of the Java platform when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2009, claims Dalvik knowingly, willfully, and deliberately infringes on Java intellectual property. According to a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco last week, Oracle is seeking a halt to any further Android development, destruction of all infringing Android software, and for Google to pay damages, both actual and statutory.

With Google claiming 200,000 Android device activations daily, it’s plausible, as IDC and others have suggested, that Oracle is simply trying to get a piece of the Android revenue stream. Android is surely limiting the revenue potential from licensing Java Micro Edition (Java ME) to device manufacturers.

While Oracle does not split out its Java licensing revenue, and neither did Sun for that matter, Peter Goldmacher, an analyst at Cowen and Co., estimates the figure to be $250 million annually. This figure includes revenue from licensing the multiple editions of Java, from Java ME to Java Standard Edition (Java SE) to Java EE. It’s pretty obvious that a $250 million revenue stream is worth protecting, and attempting to grow.

Google’s threat to Oracle’s Java EE control
I’d propose a more complex, less clear, answer to the question “Why is Oracle suing Google?” – because Oracle wants a tighter reign over Java EE. Why? Revenue potential of course. I’d hazard a guess that a non-insignificant piece of the $250 million Java licensing revenue estimate is driven by Java EE licensing. With mobile and cloud being two major investment areas for vendors and enterprises, Oracle likely wants to see a growing use of compliant Java usage – via appropriate licensing through Oracle – in the mobile and cloud arenas.

Enterprises have invested billions in Java EE technology over the past decade based on the value of open standards and multiple implementations of those standards. The ability to migrate amongst Java EE vendors has helped minimize fears of vendor lock-in.

However, Java EE’s portability value proposition has come under scrutiny from the likes of Google App Engine (GAE) and VMforce from VMware and Salesforce.com. Google clearly states that only a subset of Java EE APIs are supported on GAE. VMforce claims to offer a set of APIs that are only available through Salesforce.com. The fact that both platforms are cloud based, and that both platforms are not Java EE compliant likely hasn’t gone unnoticed by Oracle. The cloud appears to be, or at least have a potential of being, an environment where customers are willing to trade productivity and TCO for the higher degree of vendor lock-in associated with a cloud platform as a service.

Additionally, Microsoft, a non Java ecosystem vendor, has been dipping its toes in the Java ecosystem. For instance, Tomcat applications can now be deployed on Azure. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if Microsoft were to deliver an optimized Tomcat or Java EE experience on Azure in the future. If and when this occurs, Oracle would surely like to be involved, from an associated licensing standpoint.

What’s next for Java?
Some have questioned what this suit means to the future of Java. For instance, Redmonk’s Stephen O’Grady makes a prediction as to the outcome of Oracle v. Google:

…whoever wins will also lose. This suit is going to negatively impact – probably substantially – Java adoption. The enterprise technology landscape is more fragmented by the day, as it transitions from .NET or Java orthodoxy to multi-language heterogeneity.

To a degree, this isn’t new news. Sun had been planning for the day where multiple programming languages are able to run alongside the Java language on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Higher up the Java stack, Java EE vendors have been attempting to support popular Java-based programming models such as OSGi, and scripting languages such as PHP and Groovy, within their Java EE products. As Stephen points out, the days of “Java” being the answer to every project are long gone. The ability to select the programming language and programming model best aligned wit the project at hand is quickly becoming a differentiator in the Java EE market.

While the Oracle v. Google suit is a distraction, and potentially a concern from the Java vendor ecosystem, the future of Java, the platform, is and has been, much broader than the actions of its controlling entity, Sun or Oracle.

Continue to choose open standards and multiple implementationsWhatever the resolution, and however long it takes, IT decision makers would be wise to minimize risk by selecting offerings that support open standards for which multiple implementations exist. This is timeless advice and worth repeating, especially as customers consider cloud platform investments.

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